


Cassette 11: Happiness, Heart

by BiJane



Category: Within the Wires (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, Post-Season/Series 01, cassette fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 19:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14385177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiJane/pseuds/BiJane
Summary: A cassette left on the worktop, and a question.





	Cassette 11: Happiness, Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So after having this podcast recommended, I listened through, got attached, screamed at a friend, and wrote this.   
> This pretty much only happened because of marinavermillion.tumblr.com because she is amazing.   
> Enjoy!

It's been a while since you’ve seen one of these, hasn’t it? It’s nothing bad. I was just… Nostalgia is such a strange word. They aren’t happy memories, for either of us. You don’t talk about it much and I understand why. I don’t enjoy thinking about it.

But you were in my life again. In some small, selfish way I liked that. I-

No, never mind, this isn’t meant to dredge up old bad memories. Let’s look at the now.

I’m the one doing visualisation exercises now. I’m thinking of you when you find this tape. I already know where I’m going to leave it, that part of the kitchen worktop that never seems to be used for anything. The brown, the wooden surface with the faux-wood design over the top. Wood made to appear as though it’s wood. Strange for a deception to be so honest.

What do you see?

Leave the tape player where it is, look at it. Trust my voice. I wonder if you’re seeing the same thing I imagine.

The player, on top of wood which is wood but is not the wood it seems to be. It’s at waist height, and an arm’s length in front of you it stops. Perpendicular to the surface, more wood that is wood goes up a short way, then stops. There you can look out to the dining room.

A window without glass set in the wall, looking out to the far wall and a window with glass.

The cottage is small, but it’s enough. I think so, I hope you do too. The sound of the waves, of the birds, from far below us. The sunlight, too. If you’re back at your normal time then the Sun will be setting, maybe low enough that the oranges and reds will shine through the clear glass windows. You will stand there, no, you are standing there with golden light around you.

Ah. In all the tapes I recorded for you, I so miss being able to talk about colours. No greys, no whites, no blacks. No eyes, no insects.

The blue of the lampshade, hanging down over the dining table. The brown of the wood that is wood. Brown. No, I don’t like that word, it sounds so plain. Russet, perhaps. It is not precisely that colour, but it is a much nicer word than brown, don’t you agree?

The russet of the table, the chairs around it, most of which we never thought would be used.

If you turn your head- no, still look forwards, at the tape and over it. If you can’t quite see the shelves then imagine them. See with the eye of your mind again, the glass, the sculptures. Reds, yellows, blues, greens.

And then there’s some of the shells we collected walking on the beach, hung against the wall. There I suppose is some white, though it is flecked with bronze.

I never came here often enough before. I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the painting, but it was a house more than a home.

What is it that makes a home? Nothing material, surely, I am certain that even if everything that is here now had been here then I would have felt no especial connection to the place. That which makes it a home is not the seashells, or the flowers, or the smell of cooking.

No, I am not going to ask you more rhetorical questions, I can tell you the answer to this one. It’s you, Oleta. You being here, you staying here, every morning that I wake up and you’re _there_ is what makes this a home.

As a house, it sufficed. The climb to it a little exhausting perhaps, but the view down to the beach and the sea beautiful, the sound relaxing. As a home, it is perfect.

The climb isn’t much when a home is what waits for you. Home. We do so much just to find a home.

I almost didn’t recognize the cottage when I returned. Do you remember that?

You said you were so tired of living in the same kinds of grey cells; you had the chance to customize and decorate, so you did. Lampshades for every bare bulb, colour for every surface, and freshly cooked food that never needs to be packed.

I walked up the long, winding path and I saw you there, in the garden. Even that had changed, new colours, new flowers and hedges, that little vegetable patch... And you saw me. You seemed nervous at first, to see someone come up to the quiet cottage, but then you recognised me. Oh, how good it was to see you _recognise_ me.

_Hester_ you said. I was tired from the journey but as soon as I saw you, I found I could run. _Hester_ you said again. I think I said your name, I must have, but all I remember is that _Hester_. I love the way you say my name.

I remember how much I wanted to tell you how grateful I was, how glad and honoured and relieved and overwhelmed I was that you’d chosen to stay, that you were there. I remember how hard it was to say when all I could do was kiss you, and all you could do was kiss me back. I remember words, disparate words between kisses, but I don’t suppose they made much sense.

Are you still watching the cassette? Don’t take your eyes off it.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. And then to see the cottage, our cottage, blessed forever with the mark of you having been here…

The gardening, yes, but the inside as well. I’d stored some of my collection here, but what is art without a viewer? Merely by being here you made the paintings into art again. You brought more art in too, both paintings and sculpture, and tiny things, decoration.

And the music. Even after everything, I came here and you already had a cassette player. Not the one I left in the drawer, but a better one, tapes of your favourite bands already surrounding it. A little mess. It was easy to change tapes if you wanted to, and easy to sort between at the glance. Artistic chaos, not the rigid order of the Institute.

Siouxsie in the evenings. Siouxsie and the Banshees, not Suzy our dog. The thrum, her singing, you pulling me up to dance with you… Always when it’s darker, when it’s just us.

I never understood why you called our dog Suzy. It’s so easy to mistake the names; I suppose that’s intentional. I remember you blaming me, I did say you laughed like you knew something no one else did, and now only you know which you’re talking about. I remember you laughed when you said that.

And I remember dancing. The fast tempo, bumping into you and you laughing, me synchronising with you almost unwittingly as it played.

And I remember you in the day, you playing _Green Fingers_ while you’re in the garden. Singing to yourself while you look after the flowers and vegetables, and while you plant more.

I think you know I can hear you, I like it when you start singing louder. If we walked through the garden, I could probably tell you which song was playing when each seed was planted.

You can’t see it from where you are, not with the eyes of your body, but do you remember the end of the garden?

There wasn’t a real garden before you, just vaguely marked out borders. Now there’s vivid green, hedges marking out the boundary, and more flowers at the base of them with petals unfurling. Orchids growing at the foot of a hibiscus bush.

A path, like stepping stones in the sod, link the front door to the winding path to our cottage. A vegetable patch on one side, a patch of flowers on the other. Perfect asymmetry.

There’s only one gap in the hedges, only one way to walk to the house, under that archway you built. It was almost gold when it was new, wood that is the wood it looks like, criss-crossing and curving. Now it’s all hidden beneath green, the plants you helped grow and coaxed to cover it.

Forgive me. When I record description, I am used to the Institute, where there is nothing but a bed, a chair, a sink and a bulb. Here there is everything. Things to help living, and things to make it worth living.

Art to look at inside and out, paintings and food and flowers and that archway. I do not thank you nearly enough for it.

Sometimes when I go out, I only walk as far as that arch. I like walking beneath it.

But do you remember when you built it? The arch, I mean. You insisted on doing everything yourself, the archway and the garden and beyond; you liked it. Every seed, every bulb, every nail, every plank. You gathered wood, measured, sawed and hammered it together.

It took days to get just right. I remember watching you work, watching you saw a plank in two, when you looked up and watched me watching you. You said it was carpentry, and you laughed.

I love that about you. How you could talk about that, and you could still give that laugh of yours, still genuinely smile. And I think it was that exact moment when I knew.

I have a lot of reasons to like that archway.

_Clawing the ivy. Crawling the tightrope along the lattice-work_.

Trust my voice, Oleta, watch the tape player. This side’s almost done. You might turn it over. It’s music, some of our favourites. Some Siouxsie and the Banshees, some others. But don’t stop just now. Wait until then, keep your eyes forwards.

I’m visualizing. The me now that is, not the me who’s already recorded this tape, already left it on the worktop on the wood that is wood.

I’m imagining you standing by the worktop. I imagine a slight smile on your face, a look of what might be understanding in your eyes. I hope it’s a happy gleam.

It’s about timing, and timing is much easier to do when I can hear the tape.

Watch the player.

I’ve listened to this with you, like I’ve done a lot of things with you. Like I want to do a lot more things with you.

The me that is not me, but is the me I will be. The one that does not need to visualise, because she can see you. She can see you listening. In a moment, not now, but soon, we’re both imagining you turning around. She – I – will be there to see that.

I’ve thought about this for so long, since the archway. There were so many more things I thought of, so much more I wanted to do, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

The other me, the one that is not visualising, the one that is listening to this tape with you, she has a question.

She still sees you. And when you turn around, not yet but soon, you’ll see her. You may have to look down; she’ll be on one knee. 

If I’ve timed this right, that is. But I must have, she’s listening with you. I’m looking forward to being her.

We both hope you’ll say yes.

Turn around, Oleta.


End file.
